


Perihelion (alt)

by proprioception (sacrificethemtothesquid)



Series: Shrapnel [8]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Childbirth, F/M, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 12:56:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17305031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sacrificethemtothesquid/pseuds/proprioception
Summary: An alternate ending toPerihelion, dredged out of my unused works folder and polished up forderekpoindexters.





	Perihelion (alt)

Maybe it goes like this:

When it happens for real, he knows.

They’ve had scares - what he’s called scares - and there have been lies, when her body tries to deceive them. They’ve both assume this is one of the latter. They assume it's another aberration, the last twisted gasp of a broken system.

They assume this long past the point where they shouldn't.

This time, it isn’t an aberration, and it hits them both like the bullet they didn't see coming.

They’re stopped in a canyon. There’s a spring here, a rarity, and even more miraculous, it’s running clean and deep. There was a village here once, but the houses are empty husks, no tracks or traps or any sign of life. There aren’t signs of a struggle, so it wasn’t raiders. Whatever it was, the people are gone, and the spring is the only thing that remains.

They fill their tanks. It’s a luxurious thing to actually bathe, and he means to check the car while she strips off her clothes, but he can’t look away.

It’s been far too long since he’s seen her any other way than frantic fumbling in the dark, and in the low afternoon sunlight, she _glows_ as she scrubs herself, long and lean and tan. She’s standing in the water up to her calves when she jerks upright, her human hand abruptly going to the soft curve of her belly.

She looks over at Max with wide, startled eyes, and immediately, he wades out. “I really think-” she manages, and then grabs his hand to lay it on her belly.

He doesn’t feel anything - of course he can’t, not yet, not when what she's feeling is the barest flicker of life - but with a sudden wave of clarity, he _knows._

“You,” he says. “Are you okay?” He’s asking everything. He knows the panic this engenders, the way she instinctively curls into herself, the way she’s terrified of herself and all that this means. In the thousands of days they’ve travelled together, he’s teased her apart and tried to help her rearrange her broken pieces the way she’s rearranged his own, but this is an old fear, one they’ve visited again and again and again without resolution.

“Are _you?_ ” she croaks.

He might not have been, once. He thought he’d never be. But now that it’s happened, now that his palm is flat against her belly and her human fingers are gripping his own...all he feels is a deep, humming calm. The noise swells up from his bones and he pulls her against his chest to steady her heartbeat with his own.

He’d been afraid of this, but this is what the universe has handed them both, so...he isn’t.

“I’m old for this,” she mumbles into his shoulder. “I’m so old for this. It’s going to go badly, it’s-”

“We keep moving,” he reminds her.

 

*****

 

She's terrified. He's terrified too. She's absolutely right - she's old for this, they both are - and for days and days they go back and forth in stilted concern:

“...are you _sure_?”

“Are _you_?”

“It could go badly.”

“Might not.”

“Cheedo could-”

Cheedo _could._  He has no doubt about that, but even as she's saying it, he can see the discomfort in Furiosa's eyes. She's terrified and so is he, but only because they're green fighters thrust unprepared into a battle they never thought they'd wage.

It's not _no_ . It's never been _no_ . If anything, now it's a quiet and measured _yes_.

 

****

 

The child is such an accident, such an unforeseen happenstance, but his whole body hums like a well-tuned engine. “We could name it Hope,” she says one night, over her can of soup.

“ _Not_ a mistake,” he huffs, and is rewarded by her first smile in days.

 

****

 

They're lying together on the roof of the car, tucked under a thick Vuvalini blanket against the breathless night cold, when she grabs at his hand and presses it on the swell of her belly.

There's an unmistakable flutter of movement. He remembers this, remembers the first time he'd felt Sprog inside Jessie, and all he can do is be perfectly, breathlessly still, caught between the touch of the unborn child and the steady pulse of Furiosa's heart.

Wife means something different now. She’s had that title thrust upon her without ever having had a husband, and even if she hadn't, he's not sure she'd accept such a proposal if he even asked. Promises have little utility in the Waste, and actions mean everything. He can't give her more of himself than he's already given, and he'd decided long ago that his place is by her side. His blood flows through her veins and now the child they've made together nudges against his palm. He'd been lost for so long. Now, there’s nowhere else he could ever be.

 

****

 

Capable never knows when they’ll come back to the Citadel. Sometimes it’s two months, sometimes six. The journeys have gotten longer. She’s pretty sure that someday, they just won’t come back.

This time, they bring news of a trade route through the southern waste, a village where there hadn’t been one before. The villagers have ore and are willing to trade for water. The distance is a stretch, but there’s a new rig now, one build for speed and strength. It’s not impossible.

They’re wearing gear suited to the deep Waste, long opaque cloth that folds around their bodies. Furiosa is still wearing her arm, but the cinches seem higher, tighter.

They don’t sleep in her old Imperator room. It hasn’t been opened in a thousand days, maybe longer. They’re more comfortable in the car that’s become their home and Capable makes sure there’s a quiet spot in a smaller, unused garage. It’s not as nice or private as she wants to offer them, but it’s private enough, and she knows they won’t take anything else.

She doesn’t know how it happens. It’s not quite late, but the garages are almost empty. She’s looking for something or someone and she doesn’t mean to see, but her footsteps are hidden in the pounding of a hammer and she doesn’t realize where she is until it’s too late.

The room is shadowed, the only light spilling in from the hallway. Furiosa is on her knees by the car, her human hand gripping the door at the place a window would be. Max is curled around her from behind, one hand under her breasts, the other tucked between her legs. They’re moving slowly, quietly, breathing deep with familiarity of two people long accustomed to each other. There’s a heaviness to Furiosa’s body that wasn’t there before, a protectiveness in Max’s hand as it cups the curve of her belly and moves further down.

Keno’s been gone half a year, but the last thing he’d given Capable is safe and healthy inside her womb. She turns away before they see her, but she’s had her other children and been midwife to even more that she had no doubt.

Neither Furiosa or Max say anything. Capable is dying to know, but if they haven’t volunteered, she can’t pry. Instead, she goes to Cheedo.

“I know you can’t say,” she says quietly, “but I need to ask: is everything well?”

“Everything seems to be fine,” her sister says. “We talked. I told them everything I could. I tried to convince them to stay, but I really don’t think they will.”

Cheedo’s right. Furiosa and Max leave not even three days later. Capable stuffs as many medical supplies into the car as she can, trying not to be obvious but probably failing.

 

****

 

It happens in the middle of a dust storm. They're five days out from the Citadel, tucked under a protective stone overhang. They barely made it to shelter before the wind came howling down; the sky darkened like dusk at before it’s even midmorning, and hasn't lightened since. He has no marker for the passage of time.

He tries to sleep, but the roar outside is a huge, terrifying thing, and beside him, Furiosa is cranky and restless in her seat, unable to get comfortable.

He finally gives up. “Your back?”

“Stuck in this fucking _car_.”

He makes a vague gesture. “Could rub a bit.”

“I need,” she growls, “to _walk_.”

It's not going to happen. The sand is singing off the heavy canvas.

He dozes, and then-

“ _Fuck_.”

There's a hitch to her voice that yanks him to full wakefulness. In the dim, ruddy light, she's shoved the seat back as far as it will go, her human hand gripping the bar of the roll cage as she grits her teeth. “... _fuck_ -”

His brain goes completely blank. They're five days away from safety-

“I think,” she grinds out, “this is happening.”

“ _Now?_ ” he croaks.

“I can't just cross my legs and hold it,” she snaps.

The wind is still howling outside. He’s got a compass so he might be able to find the right direction, but one particularly strong gust, one hidden dune - anything might trap them and they’ll die, stripped of their skin and smothered in dust.

“You’re sure,” he says, almost plaintive. “You’re _sure_ -”

“I _don’t_ -” she groans and stiffens in the seat- “think I have any _choice_.”

She doesn’t have any choice and therefore, he doesn’t either.

He reaches behind them and gets some water. He washes his hands up to the elbows and hands the rest to her. They’ve discussed this. They’ve planned for this. They’ve practiced the routine until he’s as sure of the process as he is loading his shotgun.

The practice, however, has not involved the actual birth of a baby. They’re both hardened warriors, but this is a new battle, and as much as they’ve prepared, it’s _so_ much different when it’s no longer academic.

It’s early and she’s going slow. The storm disappears as suddenly as it’s come and mercifully, the dust goes with it, a brisk breeze clearing the air just after the sun hits its apex. As soon as it’s safe, she’s out of the car, pacing and huffing behind the cloth she’s wrapped around her face. He follows, walking with one hand at her waist and the other under her arm, propping her up when she clenches. He makes her drink. She growls at him and leans against him, alternately furious and terrified.

“We keep moving,” she repeats to herself, almost like a litany. “We keep moving. We keep moving.”

Sometime around dusk, she abruptly heads back to the car, sinking down into the passenger seat . “Now,” she gasps out. “This- _now_.”

He piles blankets around her and washes his hands again, this time with the alcohol Cheedo had given them six months ago. “Wipe everything down,” the girl had said. “Both of you, all over, as well as you can.”

He does his best and through gritted teeth, Furiosa very nearly cooperates.

It escalates quickly after that. She screams. She howls and bellows, and it echoes off the rocks in a way that makes him itch to be on lookout, to scan the horizon with a gun at ready, but she’s trapped his fingers in her human hand. She hurls curses. She wails and keens and growls and sobs.

He’s thought about this moment for months, turning it over and over in his mind. He’s dreamed about it. He’s had nightmares about it. They’ve talked over the details to an excruciating degree, but nothing, absolutely _nothing_ , has prepared him for the moment when Furiosa pushes their child out of her body and into his hands.

They’re crying, all three of them, swirling hysteria and joyful tears. The baby howls in the cool night air.

“It’s a girl,” he manages. “She’s-”

She has all the right parts in all the right places. She has a downy crown of sand-brown hair and a strong, confident wail, and somehow, his hands are the only part of him not shaking as he tucks her against her mother’s chest.

Furiosa’s eyes are frantic. “She’s okay? She’s not-”

“Perfect,” he croaks. “She’s perfect.”

He’d missed this with Sprog. He’d been hours late, and by the time he’d gotten there, his son was curled up in Jessie’s arms, the both of them sound asleep. Now, he’s in the middle of it, all three of them messy and exhausted and overwhelmed.

Maybe this is why the world ended, because he’d missed what up until right now had been the most important moment in his life. He hadn’t deserved what he’d been given, and he’s going to work like hell to deserve this now.

 

****

 

Capable is convinced they’ll come back before it happens, because she knows Max lost a son, and she doesn’t think he’ll risk losing Furiosa along with another child. She counts, but the date comes, and then goes.

She wonders if she’s miscounted, and tries to swallow back a rising wave of quiet grief. She bounces her son on her hip, and stares into the Waste, hoping.

And then they’re back.

The baby’s not even a week old, and Furiosa staggers when she gets out of the car. Both she and Max are gray with exhaustion. Cheedo immediately steps in.

There are so many _questions_ , but now is not the time to ask them. “I was afraid you weren’t going to make it back,” Cheedo tells Max in a low voice, and he nods absently.

“Cut it too close,” he says, his eyes never leaving Furiosa and the baby. “Got caught in a storm.”

On impulse, Capable darts forward and kisses his cheek, and he’s both startled and pleased.

 

****

 

All three of them are fine. All three of them are _fine_ , and Capable thanks every single deity she can think of. All three of them are dehydrated and underfed, but they’re _alive_.

Sleep is the first order of business, and if Capable lingers in the Vault, it’s definitely just because she’s still nursing herself, and wants to give Furiosa a much-needed break. Furiosa’s running a low-grade fever, and she sleeps like the dead. Max goes wherever the baby goes and only sleeps sitting up, his daughter nestled in his arms.

“What’s her name?” Capable asks quietly. It’s late at night, and he’s propped up in bed beside Furiosa, her head tucked against his hip.

He blinks, and she realizes it’s been such a mad rush to get back, they haven’t had time. “Dunno,” he finally says. “Gotta, mm, talk some.”

 

* * *

 

What actually happens is this:

Max and Furiosa drive away. Capable doesn’t know it’s the last time, and in the years that follow, she replays those last, spare conversations in her mind. Would she have said anything different? Would she have begged them to stay? What could she have said to make them leave the car and settle down in the Citadel’s high towers?

Nothing. The answer is always nothing.

Max and Furiosa leave, and don’t return. The weeks fall away without worry, and the months stretch into seasons. It’s not unusual. It’s only when Capable looks at her ledgers with a sudden frisson of alarm that she realizes it’s been almost two years since their last visit.

She tries not to worry, but two years become three, and three become four. There are coalitions to maintain and treaties and trade agreements to negotiate. New threats become old threats, and her children grow tall and headstrong. She has contacts in Bartertown and a dozen other outposts, and they all agree to keep an eye out for a sleek black V8.

The Wasteland holds its secrets close to its breast and this one it keeps closest of all.

“Hope is not a mistake,” she says at the communal table one night.

“No,” Dag agrees, “but if they _are_ ghosts, they should have a place to come home to.”

There are no bodies, and their possessions had been so spare that there are scant few artifacts. “Banksia,” says Dag, because it’s the obvious choice. In the years that follow, the two seedlings twine together in the highest terrace, surrounded by trees of other beloved dead.

Capable is in the twilight of her life when she hears something she never thought she'd hear again.

The V8 sounds just like she remembers, huge and rich and wild. The Lift Keeper waits until she's there, one eyebrow raised. “En’t the black on black,” the Keeper breathes. “Can it?”

It’s been a very, very, very long time, and Capable has defended the Citadel’s independence long enough that caution wins over hope. She lets the Keeper lower the lift until it’s halfway, and steps to the edge.

Beside the car, a woman is waiting. She’s wrapped in the heavy cloth of a traveler from the deepest Waste. There’s a rifle slung across her back, accessible but not threatening. She closes the car door with a bump of her hip, and when she sees Capable, she raises her arms in greeting.

“Is this place called the Citadel?” the woman calls up.

“It is,” Capable calls back. “All trade goes through Gastown.”

“Not here to trade.” There’s a pause. “I’m looking for the people called the Vuvalini, the Many Mothers.”

From anyone else, it would be a strange happenstance, but the car is unmistakable despite years of wear and careful patching. “Why do you come?” Capable calls down.

“I claim kinship,” the woman says, and then folds back her hood. “My mother was Furiosa Imperator, daughter of the Vuvalini. My father was Max Rockatansky of the Main Force Patrol. I have no Initiate Mother and no clan. I was told I could find the Vuvalini in the place of Three Green Towers.”

Capable’s heart leaps into her mouth.

The lift is lowered and the woman comes up. Capable is the age now that the Vuvalini were then that day out in the dunes when Furiosa had tentatively unfurled her past to the woman in the glittering tower. The woman here in front of her is younger than Furiosa had been then, but by less than a handful of years.

It's impossible that it will be Max and Furiosa. Not even they could escape the steady crawl of time. Instead, this woman is same age Furiosa was when she'd turned the wheel. She has Max’s stocky build, a moon-round face, and close-set almond-shaped eyes the color of Furiosa's own. “Red,” she breathes, even though Capable’s hair is more gray these days. “Are you…?”

“Capable,” Capable says, and holds out her arms for the woman to hesitantly grasp.

“My mother told me about you.”

It can’t be, but somehow it _is._ “I've told my daughters about her,” Capable says, her voice going thick.  

“I didn't think I'd find this place.” The woman looks around in awe, hands still gripping Capable’s wrists. “It's very far from where I've been.”

“What's your name?” Capable asks.

“Redemption,” the woman says.

Of course it is.

 


End file.
